<p>My D wrote this in response to a CC member who PM’d me and wanted me to put it out in the general for for all to see. She said when she was looking at schools and asked questions, people had short, not very helpful answers. She wanted to give an insight of what her school was really like. The OP originally asked: “Is your D enjoying her first year so far? Does she feel she is either vastly improving or being strictly motivated to improve always? Thank you for your thoughtful replies!” It’s long, so be prepared!</p>
<p>"The First year has been both exciting and grueling. I have an amazing foundation drawing teacher that started everyone on ground level by teaching us a new excellent technique for still lifes, and professors are not afraid to bring in interns who know a lot about a certain program for the student’s benefit. My 2d professor has brought in an intern to show us a demo on illustrator and my Media teacher has brought in a student to show us Dreamweaver (Both programs I took to immediately afterward) Pertaining to Dreamweaver and particularly CSS I have contacted the intern that gave the demo as well as a student that has ‘been working professionally since he was twelve’ for help on my website assignment, both of which have been very helpful. My media teacher is the sort that would clock you over the head until you understand the subject, and he’ll continue to whoop you until you’re successful, but all for your benefit. My FoundDraw prof has some wacky assignments I’m looking forward to, such as ‘drain two ballpoint pens however possible’ and 'draw <em>insert random object here</em> swinging from the ceiling (Lawnmowers, chairs…). My 2D class is more experimental (Basic project guidelines, go crazy with it), my roommate is in 3D and they just finished making tables. My reading Writing class is lots of essays and my history class is slide shows and being amused at my professor’s inability to spell. As for illustration, both illustration and the comics major in particular have a very strong community here, and both tend to group together. Upperclassmen get their own studio space (Very roomy) but there’s a comics major studio with drafting tables (I use theirs, mine in the apartment holds everything so I keep it flat), large flat tables, a couch (With two pillows and a blanket) as well as a light table. There’s studios for film (Green screen, grey screen, ect) and for 3d, as well as for animation (Haven’t found that yet, it has lightbox animation tables with pegs) so studio space isn’t an issue regardless of grade status. Down the hall from the comics studio is the amazing Free Shelf (Like goodwill without the price tags) I’ve gotten a coat, a box for markers, a gigantic bag for groceries (Sat and Sun at 5 o clock there’s vans that can drive you to a Home Depot, Target, Rainbow Foods and a Gap) and my friends have found a bag of paint, and numerous clothing articles. Around the end of the semester the place is LOADED with clothes and art supplies. We have a supply store here for art supplies (The CHEAPEST in Minneapolis, guaranteed), condoms (Should you need them), Tylenol, among other things. There’s an on campus psych, and I know there’s clinics nearby. They have clubs for everything from Fort Building (Cardboard!) to vegetable growing to improvisation to Venture Bros. fans to anime. Juuust about everything. Every Apartment has a laundry room, complete with washer, dryer, and vending machines. The library here is PHENOMENAL. A whole collection of children’s books (the famous ones, as well as old hard to find ones) illustration collections, comic books, botany, photography, I recently checked out a book on the story of Bambi complete with frame stills and concept art. The words ‘I can’t’ are unacceptable here, as there’s LOADS of resources here. The bulletin boards are laden with ads for school books, free plants (My own posting), and apartments. There’s an on campus program here called DesignWORKS where real clients have students work on real projects for them, and every week there’s an email from career services for work in just about every department. </p>
<p>The apartments themselves are nice, the floors kind of squeak though, but they get the job done, and they’re spacious. The roommate matching has been… Interesting. I have two internationals (One a freshman from Mexico, the other a graduate student from China), and one freshman from Illinois. The partying here is pretty minimal, freshman tend to party pretty hard, but other than that, not too much drinking parties. I tend to party with my graduate friends, who already got the drinking out of their system and can hold their alcohol, and they party much more responsibly (one recent party I went to, it was in a very nice house and everyone partied like responsible adults). I stay out of the drinking bit, and have never been pressured by my graduate friends. Having a roommate from Beijing has been so wonderful, she’s teaching me all new ways to cook, and has been telling me stories about where she used to live. I have a friend from Israel and he’s been so fun to be around, we have many cross-cultural language jokes, and we often speak in broken German (He knows as much as I do) much to the confusion of every one else. Critiques aren’t as terrifying as they sound, students share their opinions as well as the teacher, and as we learn, we get more adept at beating each other up for our own benefit. There’s a local street called Eat Street to go to if you crave hot food (Though our apartments have ovens, a new feature my Beijing roomie has never used: ‘Only cake makers have those!’), as well as wacky stores and Chinese food markets. A mile and a half west is a chain of beautiful lakes. I walked there and around a few lakes, as well as a local place called Uptown and managed to injure my feet from the strain of adventure. Chasing a sunset with my camera at waytooearly in the morning, I found a local playground and I believe it has swings (I was too cold to look into it), and along my walk to the lake there’s many more parks. The park in between our apartments and main buildings is public space to look at stars (aka the orange clouds from city lights), roll/sled down the hill on cardboard, play soccer, ect. I’ve never felt particularly unsafe in the area, but wouldn’t go out at night alone. We have security here, as well as blue lights. The buildings are 24/7 in the sense that you have to ring a doorbell, and an officer remotely unlocks it. Walking in you’re forced to go past the officer who let you in, so if you don’t sign in, he can chase you down. They patrol the campus atleast twice hourly, and have cameras watching everything. Signing in I got to watch them zoom in on some kid’s faces, who were using the top of a trashcan for skateboard tricks, and they went to thwack their sticks over their heads/tell them to scram, one officer was still in the office. If I remember, the bluelight emergency call time from button press to officer appearance is 45 seconds. I recently attended a self defense class sponsored by MCAD (A blackbelt showed us various ways to stop an attacker and how to assess a situation quickly, as well as ways to diffuse a situation). They take their job VERY seriously. I signed up for text alerts in case of blizzard, fire, or gunman on campus. Over all I’m having a great time, and I hope my extra rambling was useful.</p>
<p>Less School pride and more answering your question: We’re not all forced to improve to one level (Where kids work their a**es off and leave other kids are bored to death), we’re expected to prove on our own levels. We’re all graded on how much we improve as artists, not as a group. A fellow student is not much as a drawer, but he’s improved just as much as I have over the course of a few weeks, and we probably got the same grade, since we worked just as hard. I hope that answered your question!"</p>